Mordets praktik by Kerstin Ekman

I, affluentKaisbeek not hire the best ? defense lawyer, one who would I question the prosecution about the 1 missing murder weapon, the pres i ence of a potential murder weapon 1 on Bok, and who would call on the i possible testimony of Fongers, who j also became implicated in Bok's 1 financial collapse? , Still, Sietse de Vries admira 1 bly achieves a much more focused I detective story than his earlier 1 K?gcls foar Kant (WLT, Oct. 2003, 1 126).What is especially rewarding j is his layering of fragments from 1 constantly shifting times and plac , es that shape a reader's growing 1 understanding of the intrigue as 1 well as shaping characters into per 1 sons with histories, dreams, con 1 flicts, virtues, and vices that give ! them individuality and depth. All i this creates a complex structure not ! only of a murder case but also of ? each main character's life. , Henry J.Baron 1Calvin College I1 Kerstin Ekman. Mordets praktik. I Stockholm. Bonniers. 2009. 208 pages. J 175 kr.ISBN 978-91-0-012386-4 , Mordets praktik(Murder inpractice) 1 is and is not a crime story; this i novel is shot throughwith ambigu 1 ity,some ofwhich originates in its i construction as a series of occasional ! entriesmade by a compulsive but ? not very trustworthy diarist. Doc , tor Revinge is a mediocre medi 1 cal practitioner and a haphazard ! murderer, but a very good writer. 1 As he admits: "I am rather proud I ofmy ability.At least, I find iteasy J to imagine scenes from life and to I write about them."Not thathe finds j life particularly edifying. Here he 1 is, speculating moodily on the lucid , prose of his famous contemporary 1 Hjalmar S?derberg: "Writing ... is p 49 IPI Dp like the arts practiced by alchemists of old. ... It causes the drab reitera tions of everyday life to precipitate out like somuch dirty latheraround that indestructiblematter which has been purified/' S?derberg, who also exists in the real world of the early twenti eth century, wrote Doctor Glas, an elegant, morally ambivalent novel S about an introverted, melancholic E physician, who is a compulsive dia- E rist and a murderer. E Revinge has met S?derberg, E whom he admires and envies for E his social assurance as well as for E his skill inextracting literature from E life.When the novelist asks him E \ March-April 2010 I63 w > Z W H ?! w H H-1 hJ Q O about cyanide as ameans ofmurder, the ever-aspirational Revinge tries too hard tobe helpful and prepares a few poison pills. Later, he reads Doctor Glas and ismesmerized: Glas has filled his diary with intense speculations about the rights and wrongs ofkilling.He finallydecides toact and administers a cyanide pill to theodious husband of a beautiful patient. Strangely, once the deed is done, he feels little more than indif ference and reflects: "Life passes me by." The insecure Revinge identi fieswith this "tragic figure" and feels that he too must "act." When he kills his odious colleague and employer with one of the cyanide pills, it is partly because the two men share a somewhat unhealthy interest in a fair schoolgirl, the victim's stepdaughter, Frida, but partly?largely??because Revinge craves social advancement. Smartly marrying thewidow, he takes over the dead man's practice with its clientele of middle-class substance addicts. Meanwhile, Frida turns out to be perfectly able to look after herself. She trains as a nurse and befriends Ida Tjerning, a pioneering woman doctor. Tjerning's battering ram personality includes an unfemi nine fondness for crime stories. She suspects Revinge of foulplay and an echo of a thrillerplot develops, but bothmedics are as rash as they are unscrupulous. Exasperated, Revin ge tries to kill Tjerning, but things go horribly wrong. As a problem solving approach, murder ismessy and ineffective. This masterly novel is daringly referential to another masterpiece ofwitty speculation about the rela tionships between fiction and fact, between thought and action.Where S?derberg is elusive, Ekman ispre cise, and while his characters live in unquestioned ease, hers chase comforts in a harsher

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